extinguishment

English

Etymology

extinguish +‎ -ment

Noun

extinguishment (countable and uncountable, plural extinguishments)

1. The act of extinguishing, putting out, or quenching, or the state of being extinguished.
   • 1868, Margaret Carrington, Ab-Sa-Ra-Ka, Land of Massacre:

     […] surely there have been atrocities which demanded of the white man the punishment of the evil-doer; but far more have been the starvings and the flights and the extinguishments which have visited the Indian, for the offence of living […]

2. (law) The annihilation or extinction of a right or obligation.

References

• “extinguishment”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.